Unforgiven: revised version
by L71
Summary: Padme/Vader AU. After the Rebels are defeated at Yavin, a small band, led by a tactically brilliant woman with a mysterious past, continues to fight on. (Prologue)
1. Default Chapter

Title: Unforgiven  
  
Author: Darth Tim  
  
Summary: Following the defeat of the Rebels at Yavin, a small band  
  
of soldiers, led by a tactically brilliant woman with a mysterious  
  
past, continues the fight. A revelation from Lord Vader's past will  
  
change the fate of the Galaxy - forever.  
  
A/N: I know I had this story on here for awhile, and then it died.but perhaps it's fitting, since this story features a character called "the Phoenix," that it should rise again from the ashes. Over time I've decided to rework major elements of the story and here is the beginning of the rewritten version.  
  
A/N #2: Speculation regarding events in Episodes 2/3 are connected with my own version of that timeline, (Duel of the Fates and upcoming sequel) currently being written, rather than with AOTC.  
  
A/N #3: Oh - this is dark, and angsty. If you want happily-ever after, run - NOW! If you want a story about tragedy, remorse, regret, and redemption, then by all means stay and feel free to drop me some feedback.  
  
You have been warned.  
  
Disclaimer: I'm not the bearded guy with the flannel, George Lucas,  
  
who owns this stuff. I'm just a broke college student/scribbler who  
  
likes to play in a sandbox far, far away.  
  
***  
  
Prologue:  
In the periphery of Lord Vader's vision, the walls of the Death  
  
Star's main trench rushed by with blinding speed, though Vader's  
  
focus was entirely on his target. The lone Rebel X-wing skidded and  
  
jinked in a desperate attempt to throw off its pursuer's aim.  
  
"The Force is strong with this one. I'll take him myself," Vader  
  
ordered his two wingmen.  
  
The Rebel was good, he was forced to concede, if out of nothing else  
  
than professionalism. But, like the rest of them, he was doomed to  
  
fail.  
  
Another young boy from some obscure planet, strapping himself into a  
  
fighter with misbegotten romantic notions of youthful idealism. Such  
  
foolishness, Vader knew, was the well from which this accursed  
  
Rebellion drew its strength. He had once been similarly mistaken.  
  
Such a waste.  
  
But Vader did not truly feel pity, he had encased his soul in an  
  
armored shell even more impenetrable than the one which held what  
  
remained of his body. He continued to close on the dodging fighter,  
  
and finally his targeting sensor indicated a positive lock.  
  
He pressed the firing button, releasing a flurry of shots from the  
  
TIE's twin blaster cannon. The X-wing, already crippled,  
  
disintegrated, flinging its wreckage against the trench walls.  
  
***  
  
Seconds later, Han Solo reverted to realspace just as he watched, in  
  
horror, as eight laser beams converged from the perimeter of the  
  
Death Star's firing dish, the huge composite main beam lancing out  
  
toward Yavin 4.  
  
The moon glowed momentarily, then vanished in a gigantic explosion.  
  
Han and Chewbacca stared in open-mouthed horror at the scene. They  
  
had seen what the huge battle station had done to Alderaan, but to  
  
actually witness the Death Star in action was something else  
  
entirely.  
  
Chewbacca growled with rage. Coming to his senses, Han Solo saw a  
  
formation of TIE fighters rapidly approaching his position. Still  
  
shaken, he attempted to regain his composure. He could reflect  
  
later, but first he had to get out alive.  
  
"Yeah, I know. Told 'em it was a damned suicide mission. We'd better  
  
get the hell out of here. Calculate a hyperjump vector!"  
  
Chewie growled again.  
  
"It doesn't matter *where,*" Han snapped, "Just get us out of here!"  
  
Just before the fighters could close within range, the Falcon  
  
disappeared into hyperspace.  
  
Han Solo had arrived too late.  
  
*** 


	2. The Phoenix

Only a few hundred remained.  
  
This few hundred was all that was left of nearly a thousand. Male and female, human and alien, young and middle-aged, though even for the youngest innocence was a long-faded memory. Each displayed the hard stare, the mark of indifference to pain and horror, loss and death, the stare that was an unmistakable expression of the veteran soldier.  
  
Nor did they resemble any conventional notion of a military unit. There was no visible uniform, save for the dull and mottled color of their clothing. They carried no standard gear, the weapons included an assortment of civillian blasters, Clone War surplus rifles, and captured Imperial-issue carbines. The weapons, unlike the uniforms and the soldiers who carried them, were clean.  
  
Their commander, too, did not resemble the usual image of a professional officer. She was human, female, slender and of diminutive stature, by no means imposing.  
  
None of her soldiers even knew her name.  
  
It was rare to see her without the armor, styled after that worn by the Mandalorian bounty hunters, with the full helmet completely concealing her face. When she did not wear the helmet, she obscured her identity with a heavy hood. Yet none of her soldiers pressed her about her identity - she had more than earned their respect, even admiration - yet that did not stop them from private speculation.  
  
She was highly intelligent, eloquent, no doubt well-educated. She was a natural leader and a masterful tactician, and a skilled warrior and lethal marksman. From the small portions of her face that were occassionally visible, she was middle aged yet gifted with striking beauty. Some thought she seemed familiar, perhaps a person of importance before the Rebellion, though none could quite place her.  
  
She suspected they could feel her sadness, her pain. Her soldiers had experienced such things themselves, and they could easily spot a kindred spirit.  
  
Her strength and skill, and even moreso her dogged persistence, her refusal to surrender, inspired them, though she wondered if any suspected just how tired she was.  
  
Her introduction to warfare came at the age of fourteen, and ever sense she had struggled, in one form or another. She had fought corruption on the Senate Floor, fought deadly enemies in the Clone Wars, and following the formation of the Empire, joined the Rebels to fight for the Republic once again.  
  
Her second husband, a former General and Senator, perished along with billions of others on Alderaan. The first - the only man she had ever truly loved - she tried not to remember. His fate had been worse than a thousand deaths. Her children, the only remaining hope in her tragic existence, were with those killed at Yavin.  
  
Yavin had brought further disaster to the Rebels. The command structure was wiped out in a single blast of the Death Star, and the Imperials wasted no time in seizing the initiative. Billions of Rebels, as well as those merely thought to be Rebels, perished, hunted down and killed. They were killed in battle, assassinations, or dragged lifeless from interrogation chambers. Others were betrayed by the fearful, the Empire threatened planets with orbital bombardment, blockade, occupation, or even the Death Star should they fail to surrender those on the lists of Rebels and sympathizers.  
  
The struggle continued. Mon Mothma led from exile, and sent thousands of small groups to various planets and systems, ordered them to harass the enemy, to force the Empire to spend lives, credits and resources, to buy time and outlast the enemy until salvation could be found, and most importantly of all, to remind the Imperial subjects, terrorized and deprived of freedom, that the struggle continued.  
  
The Empire began moving against these cells, too, bringing massive forces to bear on each, wiping them out with the methodical ruthlessness the Empire had elevated to an art form.  
  
Her group was stationed on an Imperial supply depot in the Outer Rim, the mountainous jungle planet Istari 3. Istari 3's strategic location provided an ideal replenishment depot for patrolling Star Destroyers, and made it a valuable target for the Rebellion.  
  
She requested the assignment a week after Yavin, despite Mon Mothma's protests - she was too valuable to risk capture or death - yet she did not listen. She was once a pacifist, but when war came, she led her soldiers from the front. She would not allow others to be sacrificed in her place, and to her, if she was indeed a figurehead in the Rebellion, it meant leading by example.  
  
Perhaps she did wish to die. She knew it would happen soon. Her small force had hurt the Imperials on Istari 3 badly - very badly, badly enough for the Empire to deploy a full Stormtrooper division to guard the supply depot - yet she could only harrass the enemy, ambush small patrols, steal supplies. She could not defeat the Imperials in a pitched battle or destroy the fortified depot.  
  
Soon enough, the Imperials would deploy more men, more ships, more walkers, they would burn the forests the Rebels used for cover, blast shut the mountain caves of their camps, entomb them alive, and interrogate and torture any they did not kill.  
  
There would be no reinforcements, no regular supply runs, few transmissions from Mon Mothma's headquarters. Her small force left each battle still smaller with every casualty. They lived off stolen supplies, hunting and trapping, and foraging. Her force fought with stolen weapons loaded with stolen blaster packs.  
  
But still, she fought on.  
  
Above all, she was a woman of strength. The fire sustaining her within, her unshakeable dedication to her principles and convictions, her tenacity and resourcefulness, had not yet failed, despite the horrors. She fought on because it was her duty, to never lose hope that victory might rise from the ashes.  
  
It was no accident her code name in the Alliance was The Phoenix. 


	3. Ambush

She had participated in countless similar ambushes before - take the enemy by surprise, inflict as much damage as possible, then escape. If the situation allowed, scavenge equipment, rations, and maps from the enemy, perhaps take a few stormtrooper uniforms for use in infiltration missions. Rig booby traps in the area if possible for later visitors.  
  
Aster Faldon knew the role well, better than most. The tall, slender brunette human female was the Phoenix's second in command, and like most of the troops, a victim of the Empire's fury. Her husband had been murdered on Dantooine months ago.  
  
She was as deadly as she was elegant. Aster had gone through commando training with the best of the Rebellion's infantry, and had more than held her own. She was intimately familiar with guerilla-style warfare, had an intimate knowledge of the applications of explosives, was an excellent marksman with a blaster, and trained in various forms of deadly hand-to- hand combat. Her sharp tongue masked an even sharper mind, and her ability to get a job done, no matter what the odds, made her an excellent second-in- command.  
  
At the moment Aster crouched next to her commander behind a fallen tree. The position overlooked a small winding gouge in the forest floor carved by flowing rainwater. The Imperials were using it for a patrol route. A force of two hundred was deployed in two groups on either side of the path, concealed behind the thick vegetation. Two men with a rocket launcher were deployed in a nearby treetop.  
  
Along each side of the path at the edges, in front of the soldiers, they placed a half-dozen scythe mines. A scythe mine was a deadly anti-infantry weapon, a box-shaped device with three hundred durasteel pellets in front and an explosive charge behind. She held in her hand the remote detonator, which, when pressed, would detonate the weapons, spraying hundreds of pellets out in fan-shaped patterns, shredding anything in their path.  
  
Utterly silent, she soon heard the enemy approaching, the sound of boots crunching dead leaves and dry twigs, and a high pitched mechanical whine sounded further in the distance.  
  
As they came around a bend, Aster saw they were in platoon strength, moving in pairs with wide intervals in between. They looked alert, moving deliberately, helmeted faces sweeping the terrain, carbines held ready. Two dozen meters behind tramped a pair of AT-ST scout walkers ready to provide fire support, the commander of each alert, his upper body visible protruding from the top hatch.  
  
She waited, each second seeming much longer, as the first group of men drew even with her position. She willed herself to remain motionless, except to glance over at her commander. The armored helmet nodded almost imperceptibly.  
  
Aster punched the detonator switch for the mines.  
  
The vegetation erupted in a roar and brilliant flashes of fire. A moment later, the Rebels rose from cover and opened fire, the shriek of blaster bolts adding to the chaos. Stormtroopers fell everywhere or lie motionless, those escaping the mines caught in a vicious storm of small arms fire. Some fired back or tried to find cover, but it was futile. The walkers, however, wasted no time in joining the action, chin blaster cannon began spraying fire at muzzle flashes and glimpses of movement.  
  
A streak of fire and smoke rushed from one of the treetops, the rocket's warhead punching through a walker's thin top armor and exploding inside the cabin.  
  
Aster raced forward towards the other walker, then crouched behind another fallen tree, waiting for the machine to pass by. Moments later, a metal foot slammed down less than a meter away. She removed a demo charge from her belt, flicked the arming switch, and lunged forward, jamming the charge in a small gap in the joint where the foot met the lower leg, then threw herself flat. The walker's leg came up, and the charge exploded, severing the foot entirely. Unbalanced, the AT-ST heeled over, the cabin smashing into a massive tree trunk, smoke pouring from the hatches.  
  
"Good job"  
  
Aster turned around to see her commander approach.  
  
At that moment, the Phoenix slumped forward, hit in the shoulder by a blaster bolt. She cried out in pain as her other hand flew to the wound. Aster looked around frantically, and saw to her left a squad of stormtroopers advancing. She crouched down, pulled out her blaster rifle, and opened fire, sending the Imperials rushing for cover. They were going to be outflanked if she didn't think of something soon. Aster pulled out her comlink.  
  
"Riassk, get over here NOW!"  
  
She took a moment to fire a few more shots at the stormtroopers, then drag her wounded commander to safety behind a tree. There was blood on her right shoulder, the armor plate having been knocked off by the blaster bolt. Yet after a moment's examination, Aster could tell that the armor had also taken the force of the shot's energy, and the wound was relatively superficial.  
  
Riassk, a huge male wooikie with a flamer strapped to his back, came rushing up behind her.  
  
"The General is wounded and we're being flanked," Aster said. "Give us some cover."  
  
Riassk growled in acknowledgement as he hefted the flamer's nozzle, igniting the weapon and sweeping it in a broad arc, the stream of fire igniting vegetation and melting stormtrooper armor.  
  
Aster threw a grenade over the flames toward the enemy for good measure. The wall of fire, growing in intensity, became a barrier between them and the enemy. "All units, fall back," Aster ordered via the comlink. Riassk grabbed the wounded Phoenix with deceptive ease and threw her over his shoulder. They turned and ran towards the rally point as the inferno grew behind them. 


End file.
